School Beliefs

BELIEFS:

Guiding our work is a commitment to teaching our students to work hard and be nice. We are building and educating the compassionate leaders of tomorrow. In that sense, academic lessons at MAIS integrate values and model behavioral expectations that reflect our school values.

Across MAIS we have adopted five core values that are reinforced by our beliefs and operating norms. In our work and lives, we seek to honour, commit, persist, excel, and enjoy.

Muhammed Anwar

began the M.A. Ideal school chain in 1987. He started a low-cost private high school with 34 students in a small, rented building in Hyderabad. Now, there are currently 10 schools located in Hyderabad’s slums. All schools are coeducational; teaching is in English; and the target market is low-income families.

Organisation and management

M.A. Ideal has a main campus is comprised of five schools (with 1,700 students). There are five additional schools. There is one head teacher for every 12 teachers, one education coordinator for every four headteachers and four branch managers covering all cluster managers. Each branch manager is responsible for two to three schools. Education coordinators monitor schools weekly. The data collected are immediately put into the Akshara school management system on computers. The Akshara software ensures that all branch managers, cluster managers, headteachers, and teachers are constantly aware of attendance, student achievement, and fiscal issues. M.A. Ideal has a school board comprised by education specialists, who make decisions based on the database of information captured weekly. Standards, curriculum and monitoring

M.A. Ideal nursery schools

follow international standards, as do Grades 1-5. Grades 6-10 follow state standards. All students learn leadership skills as well as skills such as cooperation, sharing, conflict resolution, and team building. Special classes are set up for grades 8 and 10 around building confidence. Grades 1-5 follow an M.A. Ideal curriculum focused on phonics and mathematics. Grades 6-10 follow the state curriculum. All Grades are assessed quarterly, half-yearly, and annually (terminal formative exams) with four formative exams between the terminal exam. Nursery students are not assessed. 85% of Grade 6-10 students pass the exit exam compared to 60% for all private schools and just 25% in government schools. There are clear metrics and rubrics for teachers to follow when assessing and reporting on student success. Exam scores are noted manually, then placed in an electronic database using the proprietary Akshara school management software. Parents receive four report cards per term and, thanks to highly innovative software, they are presented with in-depth data - reporting includes benchmarking students against previous progress and where they stand against other students. Learning environment

The school day follows the government schedule

but not the same holiday allowance. Children at nursery start their day at 9:15am and finish at noon, whilst all the other grades start at 9:15am and finish at 3:15pm. M.A. Ideal does not have holidays for all of them, so their students attend school for more days per year than government school students. Lessons are in alignment with government schools at 45 minutes each. Extra lessons are offered after school. There are additional lessons available on weekends, one month prior to terminal exams. Younger age students are grouped by gender. Students in upper grades are not grouped by gender. Classes are a 50/50 mix of boys and girls. Teaching and materials
Teaching and learning includes a mixture of rote (when appropriate) and interactive approaches, with frequent feedback provided throughout the lessons. Teachers allow students to take control of their learning and foster leadership by asking students to report back into the class. Teachers share best practice for classroom management on a weekly basis, with all classes showing a high degree of structure and amiability. Corporal punishment is not allowed. Nursery grade teachers use self- published books and teacher guides. Grade 1-5 teachers use teacher guides and lesson plans created by M.A. Ideal. Grade 6-10 teachers use textbooks published by Vidya Prakashan and create their own lesson plans based on the state curriculum. The scope and sequence are changed as and if necessary. Teacher recruitment and development

The majority of M.A. Ideal teachers are former students.

Most new teachers are 18 to 22 years old and they usually start as nursery teachers and work their way up. In turn, school leaders tend to be former teachers. Recruiting locally through word-of-mouth is effective and seems to support positive relationships between teachers and parents. In particular, having school leaders who have worked their way up in their own communities seems to inspire trust with parents. M.A. Ideal schools run both pre-service and in-service schemes. Pre-service training for new teachers lasts four days and focuses on classroom management, phonetics, methodology, and pedagogy. New teachers are monitored for the first three months and are provided support as appropriate. The in-service scheme for existing teachers includes 30 minute discussions after school between the headteacher and teachers on content and sharing best practice. Academic coordinators monitor teaching in maths and English three days per week and make suggestions for improvement . Find out more on the M.A. Ideal website.

Our School Toppers 2016-2017 M.A Idal School Toppers

ADMISSIONS ARE OPEN FOR CLASSES NURSERY TO 10TH. PLEASE CONTACT 9346 045 902/904/909/910/911/912/914/916